Eugénie Honorée Marguerite Servières, née Charen[1] (1786 – 20 March 1855) was a French painter in the Troubadour style. She specialized in genre period paintings.

Eugénie Honorée Marguerite Servières
Eugénie Servières, by Jean-Baptiste Wicar, c.1810
Born
Eugénie Honorée Marguerite Charen

1786 (1786)
Died1855 (aged 68–69)
Paris
Spouse
Joseph Servières
(m. 1807)

Biography

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In 1807 she married the playwright Joseph Servières. She trained with her stepfather, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, Director of the French Academy in Rome.[2]

Beginning in 1808, she exhibited her paintings, on a wide variety of subjects, in several venues. In 1808 and 1817, The Paris Salon awarded her medals.[3] In 1825, she displayed two works at the Salon in Lille.

Her paintings include Hagar in the Desert, Lancelot and Genevieve, Louis XIII and Mlle. de Lafayette, Alain Chartier and Marguerite d'Écosse, Valentine de Milan, Desdemona Singing the Romance of the Willow, and Blanche de Castille Delivering the Prisoners of Châtenay.[4]

Her Mathilde converts Malek-Adhel to Christianity (1812, from a novel about the Crusades by Sophie Cottin) was purchased by the Empress Marie Louise for her personal collection, while the evocative Inez de Castro and her Children at the feet of the King of Portugal is preserved at the Trianon Palace at Versailles, near Paris.[5]

Most of her works were personally commissioned, and very few are in museums. She had several students.

Selected paintings

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Further reading

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  • Christie Margrave, Eugenie Servières paints the Romantic Orientalism of Sophie Cottin (2022) Online @ European Romanticisms in Association
  • Geneviève Madec-Capy, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, peintre d'histoire (1760-1832), doctoral thesis, Sorbonne (1998) Online
  • Germaine Greer, The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work, Tauris (1979) ISBN 978-1-86064-677-5

References

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  1. ^ Umberto Todisco, Le personnel de la Cour des comptes (1807-1830), Droz (1969) ISBN 978-2-600-03361-9 Online @ Google Books
  2. ^ Théodore Guédy, Nouveau dictionnaire des peintres anciens et contemporains, Deplanche Online @ Google Books
  3. ^ Charles Gabet, Dictionnaire des artistes de l’école française au 19th century, Vergne (1831) Online @ Google Books
  4. ^ Adolphe Siret, Dictionnaire historique des peintres de toutes les écoles, Perichon (1858) Online @ Google Books
  5. ^ Maryse Violin-Savalle, Images croisées de la femme romantique à travers la littérature et la peinture, en France de 1765 à 1833, Villeneuve d'Ascq, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1998, ISBN 978-2-28400-456-1
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